People going through today’s American educational system can be assured to have been intensely trained to understand that using crude stereotypes to whip up hatred toward Jews and blacks in order to justify targeting them with public and private persecution is gravely wrong.

I can remember, though, a day back in my parochial elementary school when our nun brought in a film projector and told us all about the Holocaust. Scarcifying images of great piles of emaciated bodies being pushed into mass graves by bulldozers, of skeletons lying in piles in ovens, of the pitiful starven and emaciated survivors took the entire class of children through the emotional wringer. How could human beings do such things to other people? more than one classmate demanded indignantly in the subsequent discussion.

Then rang the recess bell. As my classmates filed down the porch steps to the asphalt school yard, the dark atmosphere of the tormented history of Europe suddenly lifted, and, to my own astonishment, first one aggressor singled out a particular class misfit for persecution, then one by one nearly all of my classmates joined in. I marveled at the time that so much enthusiasm for the accepted moral lesson could go hand in hand with a complete incapacity to generalize it.

Editors and journalists employed by major newspapers and television networks are highly paid members of America’s upper middle class community of privilege, but that does not stop them from behaving like nasty school children ganging up on vulnerable victims, or from forming lynch mobs to go after not-necessarily-in-every-case better-paid business executives.

We’ve had a disgraceful orgy of class hatred for days now directed at AIG employees who receive, in accordance with the custom of their industry, large portions of their compensation in the form of bonuses. The bolshevik quarter of the blogosphere and the mainstream media have been deliberately whipping up public indignation by using selective and inflammatory reporting and general ignorance of the bonus compensation system as a basis for stirring up group hatred aimed at Wall Street and the business community as a class.

A trader or division leader in a firm which is losing money may himself, of course, be making his firm all kinds of money, and may be more than amply exceeding his own profit targets. It is not extraordinary or astonishing in the least that in an industry in which bonuses play a major role that, even in times of negative overall earnings, firms may be obligated by contract to pay bonuses to many executives.

The press also doesn’t stop to remind the public that any responsible business organization will first pay its own employees, before it attempts to meet external obligations to creditor or stockholders, or even to Big Brother.

The press and the leftwing blogs are simply cynically manipulating the emotions of the public by relying on false stereotypes and imaginary grievances to stir up envy and hatred which they propose to use to as the mechanism for gaining public support for their own radical, pernicious, and socially and economically destructive agenda of institutionalizing class warfare in public policy.

The American socialist revolution ironically typically features the fat and comfortable bourgeoisie yelling for the blood of the harder-working, less prestigious representative of exactly the same class as himself.

The gleeful tricoteuses at the Washington Post report that the public’s “rage swells,” proud of having whipped the mob into a sufficient fury as to pose actual physical hazard to their fellow citizens.

A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn’t show up at all.

“It’s a mob effect,” one senior executive said. “It’s putting people’s lives in danger.”

Even so-called Republicans senators, like the egregious Charles Grassley of Iowa, have been unable to resist the temptation to pick on a defenseless target. Grassley is quoted by the Politico suggesting that AIG executives entitled to bonuses should resign or commit seppuku.

American life is growing darker and more dishonest.

Steve Tuttle, in Newsweek, nominates his frugal parents as ideal role models for the Age of Obama, the new era of poverty and scarcity in which thrift is a survival skill.

Last summer I was at my parents’ cabin in rural Virginia and I noticed a dead mouse in a rusty old trap. I tossed it in the trash. Later that day I told my dad about the mouse, and he asked, “Where’s the trap?” I told him it looked as though it were falling apart, and I’d thrown it out with the mouse still attached. He looked at me as if I’d punched him in the face. My mom chimed in: “We’ve had that trap since we got married!” I wasn’t sure she was joking, and they got married almost 50 years ago. I sheepishly dug it out of the garbage and loaded it up with cheese again. Now it’s become one of those perennial things they bring up every time I go home: “Remember when Steve threw out the mousetrap, mouse and all!?” This is followed by shuddering and head shaking, as they silently wonder where it all went wrong.

What Tuttle doesn’t seem to realize is that his parents are simply typical representatives of an older, working-class life style in which cash was in severely limited supply and in which one’s own time in the form of labor would routinely serve as a substitute.

My generation always blamed our parents’ resistance to our own preferred high consumption economic style as the product of the psychic trauma of living through the Great Depression.

A lot of people on the left these days seem to be rejoicing in the arrival of economic bad times the same way many Britons and other Europeans welcomed the outbreak of the First World War, as a purifying fire that would sweep away corruption and decadence and which would ennoble those who passed through the flames. Well, we all know how well things worked out for those Europeans of the WWI era.

Tigerhawk is willing to give credit where credit is due.

To the extent that Americans, mostly Democratic Americans, believed that the gap between rich and poor was a bigger problem than the absolute prosperity of the poor, I suspect that on the final crunching of the numbers social scientists will discover that most of the widening of the last couple of decades has been suddenly erased. Well, there’s one problem solved!

Americans’ Net worth down $15.5 trillion.

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CNN Money:

The number of American households with a net worth of $1 million or more, excluding the value of their primary residence, fell 27% to 6.7 million in 2008 from an all-time high of 9.2 million the year before, according to a report from market research firm Spectrem Group.

“America has a lot fewer millionaires than when this economic crisis began,” said George Walper, president of Spectrem Group, in a written statement.

But don’t weep only for the 2.5 million fewer millionaires. The report, which is based on surveys of 3,000 affluent households, also showed the number of both multi-millionaires and aspiring millionaires plummeted last year.

Affluent households, defined as those with a net worth of $500,000 or more, declined 28% to 11.3 million from 15.7 million.

Sondra K. offers photographic evidence of the Change.

The Obamessiah was too busy, the White House said, and Barack Obama became the first president since Grover Cleveland to omit attending the annual Gridiron Club Dinner.

The Politico tries reading the tea leaves to divine the significance of Obama’s slight, but the obvious subtext is really just the arrogant sense of personal entitlement and contempt for institutions and tradition of the standard-bearer of the cultural left. Barack Obama’s politics has been strong on generational consciousness and he used Change as his personal mantra. The change includes dispensing with respect for old practices and with courtesy toward Washington’s establishment press corps.

No offense intended, says the Obama White House.

None taken, say the esteemed leaders of the Gridiron Club.

Still, in Washington, a slap does not have to be officially labeled as such for its sound to echo — and its sting to be felt.

And make no mistake: President Barack Obama deciding that he is too busy to attend the Gridiron’s annual banquet later this month is a slap. He’s the first president since Grover Cleveland to skip the white-tie-and-tails affair in his first year in office.

The official line from the Gridiron Club — a society of Washington reporters, columnists, and bureau chiefs — is, “We understand.”

But some Gridiron veterans make clear they don’t understand. Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page said, “People feel uncommonly saddened, miffed and burned.

“I don’t think he understands the implications of not coming to the club in the first year. It’s not your ordinary state dinner. I think it would be helpful for him and his relations with the Washington establishment to come to the club.”

Beyond bruised feelings among the pundit class, Obama’s snub is a revealing cultural moment.

Gridiron has for decades been an inner sanctum of Washington’s political press corps. The club’s mostly aging members were considered highly prestigious because they said so — and because they had the ability to summon the capital’s political elite to a spring frolic of skits and songs.

But if a young and glamorous president decides he can afford to blow off an august and tradition-bound institution, one has to at least entertain the possibility that this institution may not be quite as august as its members assumed.

The rejection was heightened by the that’s-the-night-I-wash-my-hair explanation the Gridiron got from Obama.

At first, Gridiron members heard through back channels that the Obama family would be in Chicago during the Obama daughters’ spring break from school. Then, on Friday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing that the family would actually be in Camp David on March 21, the night of the dinner.

That’s not exactly out of town by presidential standards — in fact, it is about a 20-minute helicopter ride if Obama had decided the event were important enough.

Over the last few decades, the powerful impact of Conservatism on jurisprudential reasoning, both in law school publications and in judicial opinions, has caused progressives reluctantly to deal with original intent in Constitutional Law.

Jess Bravin, in the Wall Street Journal, reports on a fascinating new development, in which some liberals are considering a positive embrace of Constitutional Originalism philosophically.

A progressive originalism would reject the ruling of the Slaughter-Houses Cases of 1873 which limited the impact of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of the “privileges or immunities” of individual citizens against the states.

The libertarian potential of such a move could be tremendous, and the conflict within the legal community on the left between an inclination to suppress States’ Rights while enhancing individual rights claims on the basis of the post-Civil War Amendments versus their love of regulation and generally enthusiastic embrace of the cult of Statism will be absolutely fascinating to watch unfold.

A must read.

This handsome fox was glimpsed (and photographed by Karen) cantering away well in advance of hounds. He somehow foiled his line very quickly, because hounds lost his scent almost immediately after they opened on him.

Well, now he can go back to work breeding up next autumn’s fox cubs.

Everett Raymond Kinstler, Ayn Rand

Edward Cline observes that the left’s dishonest and temporary triumph is being marred by a stubborn dissent on the part of ordinary Americans armed with very different ideas, ideas having a great deal to do with a very thick novel published just over half a century ago.

The world seems to be emerging from a moral and intellectual coma, perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently. It is discovering that other ideas have other consequences, as well, ideas that promote life, promote prosperity, promote ambition and personal success, and that they are possible only in political freedom, and that this freedom has been violated, abridged, and nullified by the first set of ideas. True, politics is the last thing to be affected by a philosophical revolution. But one cannot help but be pleased with how startled the collectivists and altruists are now by the knowledge that they have not successfully pulled a fast one on Americans. These Americans have come knocking on the doors of elitists or leaning over the café railings or invading their legislated smoke-free bars and restaurants to ask: What in hell do you think you are doing?

The Americans who recently protested the spendthrift policies of the Obama administration and Congress with “tea parties,” and who plan to protest them on an even larger scale in the near future, one can wager are not regular readers of The New York Times. They cannot have much in common with its columnists and editors, nor with the news media.

So the collectivist and altruist elite become very touchy when the people for whom they are “doing good” for their own sake, even to the point of enacting coercive and felonious legislation, exhibit signs of intelligence, resistance and anger. How dare these yokels!

And nothing raises their hackles higher than any mention of Ayn Rand.

In an older essay (have we linked and quoted this one before?) clinical psychologist Gagdad Bob (frequently quoting his own book) explains that it is liberals’ atavism that keeps them from understanding economics, and remarks on the irony of the application of the term “progressive” to the left.

For millennia—until quite recently—human beings struggled to rise above subsistence because of a stubborn inability to recognize how wealth is created. Certainly into the late 18th century, people mistakenly believed that there was simply a fixed amount of wealth in the world, and that it was left to individuals and governments to fight over their share. Not until Adam Smith was it recognized that wealth can grow without limits, but obviously even now people have a hard time wrapping their minds around this idea.”

In my view, one of the central mechanisms that kept mankind in its rut of subsistence was the expression of constitutional envy. ...

“One of the things that makes the creation of wealth possible is the accumulation of surplus capital to invest, but here again, for most of human history this was quite difficult to accomplish because of envious mind parasites that could not tolerate the idea of one person possessing more than another.” Thus, envy “was one of the psychological barriers to material development that humans have struggled to overcome.”...

Which brings up a fascinating irony about so-called progressives. Now, it is a truism that progressives are not just ignorant of economics, but that they confidently embrace and promulgate what can only be called economic innumeracy. Why is this? How can people be so confidently and yet demonstrably wrong? ...

The problem—as I touched on in my book—is that the primitive progressive is operating under an economic theory that is not so much cognitive but genetic. In a way, it’s deeper than thought, since it was programmed into us for survival in small groups (obviously, natural selection did not anticipate a high tech, competitive, free market global economy). Thus, Fiske confirms my speculation that the logic of market pricing was a very late development which is not at all “hard wired”—and even goes against our genetic programming. ...

For hunter-gatherers in small bands, sharing, matching and ranking were probably as fundamental to survival as eating and breeding. But market pricing involves complex choices based on mathematical ratios…. Commerce and global trade, of course, require a finely honed version of the market-pricing model. But if humans developed this model relatively late, it might well be less than universal, even today.”..

“In other words, to have an intuitive grasp of economics, you might just need to take a step or two up the evolutionary ladder.”...

In short, to cure yourself of progressivism—or any other kind of atavistic primitivism—you will have to grow and evolve. This is exactly the problem we are facing in the Islamic world, for if we cannot even lift our own tragically backward progressives out of economic magic and superstition, imagine the difficulty of doing so with an explicitly tribal and authoritarian mindset. ...

If the most progressive people are those with a concept of market economics, one of the great tragedies of the modern age has been their systematic destruction by less progressive people who call themselves the most progressive…. I’m wondering whether there might be a basic, persistent inability to distinguish forward from backward. I used to think that ‘progressives’ imagined themselves to be forward in their thinking, but I’m now thinking that ‘scientific Marxism’ might have been grounded in an unacknowledged need for primitivism.”

Would this explain how leftist economic theory functions as a sort of seductive door through which all sorts of other barbarisms rush in? To put the answer in the form of a bumper snicker, “Come for the egalitarianism, stay for the bestiality and tyranny.”

From Dr. Sanity via Bird Dog.

So much for that “reset relations” button that Hillary delivered to the leaders of the Kremlin.

The Russians have an almost 50 year old tradition of testing democrat wimp presidents. John F. Kennedy conspicuously failed that test in 1962 when he abandoned the Monroe Doctrine, and traded US missiles in Turkey and a promise to leave Castro in place for Russian removal of missiles from Cuba and an ersatz public victory.

Now it very well may be Barack Obama’s turn.

Reuters:

A Russian general said on Saturday Venezuela has offered the use of its La Orchila island airfield for Russian strategic bombers on long-range flights.

Russia has been keen to build relations with a rival to the United States in the Western hemisphere in an effort to counter U.S. influence in formerly Communist countries in eastern Europe and central Asia.

“If certain political decisions are taken, it is possible (for Russian bombers to use the base),” Interfax news agency quoted the head of Russian strategic aviation general-major Anatoly Zhikharev as saying.

Zhikharev also said Russian bombers would be prepared to use four or five airfields on Cuba if the political leadership of the two countries allowed the use of Cuban bases.

Two Russian long-range bombers flew to Venezuela last year in a visit designed to show off Moscow’s military strength and build ties with a foe of the United States.

There’s an earlier one, also by Nose on Your Face, but this one is better.

2:19 video

This time it’s Megan McArdle.

Having defended Obama’s candidacy largely on his economic team, I’m having serious buyer’s remorse. ...

[H]e… promised to be non-partisan and accountable, and the size and composition stimulus package looks like just one more attempt to ram through his ideological agenda without much scrutiny, with the heaviest focus on programs that will be especially hard to cut.

The budget numbers are just one more blow to the credibility he worked hard to establish during the election. Back then, people like me handed him kudoes for using numbers that were really much less mendacious than the general run of candidate program promises. Now, he’s building a budget on the promise that this recession will be milder than average, with growth merely dipping to 1.2% this year and returning to trend in 2010. Isn’t there anyone at BLS who could have filled him in on the unemployment figures, or at Treasury who could have explained what a disproportionate impact finance salaries have on tax revenue? These numbers . . . well, I can’t really fully describe them on a family blog. But he has now raced passed Bush in the Delusional Budget Math olympics.

You won’t read about it in the Times or the Post, but the Wall Street Journal’s Douglas E. Schoen and Scott Rasmussen are reporting that Obama’s approval numbers, though still in the black at present, 50 days into the Honeymoon period, are decidedly lower than those of other presidents over the last century at the same point in their administrations, and Obama’s numbers are sinking.

Meanwhile, polls, including the liberal Gallup, also demonstrate a growing lack of confidence in Obama’s economic policies and growing opposition to federal bailouts.

[A] solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.

Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live “an American life” without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.

Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives.

President Obama’s honeymoon is beginning to fade.

Members of Congress and old political hands say he needs to show substantial progress reviving the economy soon. ...

While lawmakers debate controversial proposals contained in the new president’s debut budget — cutting farm subsidies, raising taxes on charitable contributions, etc. — there is a growing sense that time is running out faster than expected.

Democrats from states racked by recession say Obama needs to produce an uptick by August or face unpleasant consequences. Others say that there is more time, but that voters need to see improvement by the middle of next year.

The most optimistic say Obama and Democrats in Congress will face a political backlash unless the economy improves by Election Day 2010.

“We’ve got to see an uptick by August or the Democratic majority is in jeopardy,” said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), whose state had an 11.6 percent unemployment rate in January. ...

But Obama must move quickly, he added, saying, “By summer there is no more honeymoon. Period.”

Other Democrats and some Republicans question whether Obama’s attention is too thinly spread — whether his economic message may be diminished by forays into healthcare, education and energy reform.

“I think any political honeymoon has a short life, and in this economic climate it’s dictated by the public’s perception of hope for the economy,” said former Democratic Sen. Richard Bryan, who represented Nevada for 12 years.

Greg Pollowitz explains, at National Review Online, that it was not simply Neocon Zionists who torpedoed the Freeman nomination. It was his financial ties to foreign governments (the Saudis and China) and his own extreme statements, particularly those expressing contempt for human rights in China, that did him in.

Meanwhile, David Broder is shedding big, salty tears over the nation’s loss of the services of someone so “thoughtful and obviously smart as hell,” with a special gift for seeing “how situations look to the people on the other side,” particularly when those other people are lining his pockets.

Why, Freeman is so smart, Broder argues, that he would have been able to “explain” Chinese behavior in the recent incident in which Chinese vessels harassed a US intelligence ship in international waters.

I’m sure Freeman would have said that the Chinese were simply re-asserting their national pride after being so cruelly mistreated by the Western powers in the 19th century, and that their making innovative maximalist claims to territorial sovereignty over the South China Sea is a natural expression of their wounded dignity to which we should understandingly concede. Behaving otherwise on our part would be arrogant and provocative. See, Mr. Broder? The country doesn’t need Charles Freeman as head of NIC. I can tell you myself just what he would have said.

[T]here are more than five sexes and only demotic Greek seems to distinguish among them. The sexual provender that lies to hand is staggering in its variety and its profusion. You would never mistake it for a happy place.—Lawrence Durrell on Alexandria in Justine (1957).

Heather McDonald comments on the antics of Yale’s Administration in catering to the demands of its Gay (in all its permutations) constituency and on the ironies of the contemporary approaches to paideia.

In 2007, at the behest of feminist students, Yale added yet another layer of costly bureaucracy-the Sexual Harassment and Assault Resources and Education Center-to its already generous sexual assault infrastructure. I asked physics professor Peter Parker, convenor of the college’s Sexual Harassment Grievance Board and a sponsor of the new S.H.A.R.E. Center, how many sexual assaults on students there were at Yale. He said that he had “no idea.” (In fact, the number of reported unconfirmed assaults can usually be counted on one hand.) So if students came to the administration demanding a malaria treatment center, would Yale build it without first determining the prevalence of malaria on campus? I asked him. “We didn’t make our judgment based on numbers, but based on concern by students in the community,” he answered.

Faced with such a pliant oppressor, students have to get quite creative in manufacturing new causes of grievance. At the opening ceremonies for the new Office of LGBTQ Resources, junior Rachel Schiff, a coordinator for the LGBT Co-op, complained: “The fact that we don’t actually have a physical space says lots about Yale’s stance towards LGBT life on the ground at a metaphorical level.”...

Today’s solipsistic university… allows students to answer the “Who am I?” question exclusively, rather than inclusively. Identity politics defines the self by its difference from as many other people as possible, so as to increase the underdog status of one’s chosen identity group.

Actually, as far back as the early 1980s, I was startled to learn from undergraduates that the Yale Political Union was not allowed to solicit members by advertising in the prematriculation Freshman mailing packet, but Yale’s LGBT organization was.

Clearly, where I went wrong was in failing to demand a special house provided at university expense, and a special curriculum focused on Redneck Polack Deer Hunter (RPDH) studies.

Hat tip to Scott Drum.

John Tyler (1790-1862), 10th President 1841-1845

Mark Krikorian, at the Corner at National Review Online, provides the astonishing news that not one, but two, grandsons of President John Tyler, born 1790, are living today in 2009.

Email reports are coming in saying that the Fairfax Hunt’s kennels at Red Hill Farm, on Stone School Lane, outside Leesburg, here in Loudoun County, have been destroyed today by a sudden and disastrous fire of unknown origin.

Three staff horses and the hound puppies are said to have perished, but apparently many hounds were rescued through a hole cut in the fence.

The Fairfax Hunt meets at fixtures in eastern and western Loudoun County, Virginia, and its pack last year consisted of 31 couple of Crossbred Foxhounds.

What a horrible thing!
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Update 3/11, 2:13 PM EDT:

Professional Huntsman Kevin Palmer is reported to have saved 90% of the pack. Some puppies were apparently among the hounds rescued.

—————————————————————-

Update 3/11, 5:13 PM EDT:

Loudoun Times-Mirror

The fire started around 7:15 AM. Three horses, ten hounds, and six or seven puppies were killed.

photo:Jason Jacks

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3/12:
Fox News attributes the source of the fire to an old refrigerator and has videos.

Hat tip to Robert Breedlove.

Cracked serves up recipes and videos explaining how to construct your own Tesla Coil, Laser, RailGun, ExoSuit, and/or Jet Pack at home.

Why, with any one of which an enterprizing fellow could… dare I say it? Rule the world. (Maniacal laugh)

Hat tip to Conservative Grapevine.

Former Saudi Ambassador Charles Freeman said he was throwing himself under the bus, as a form of protest against the nefarious domination of American foreign policy by the International Zionist Conspiracy.

Washington Post:

Charles W. Freeman Jr. withdrew yesterday from his appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council after questions about his impartiality were raised among members of Congress and with White House officials.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said he accepted Freeman’s decision “with great regret.” The withdrawal came hours after Blair had given a spirited defense on Capitol Hill of the outspoken former ambassador.

Freeman had come under fire for statements he had made about Israeli policies and for his past connections to Saudi and Chinese interests. ...

In an e-mail sent to friends yesterday evening, Freeman said he had concluded the attacks on him would not end once he was in office and that he did not believe the NIC “could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack.” He wrote that those who questioned his background employed “selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record . . . and an utter disregard for the truth.”

Such attacks, he said, “will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues.” And he said he regretted that his withdrawal may cause others to doubt the administration’s latitude in such matters.

—————————————————-

But, as Greg Sargent reports, Chuck Schumer is trying to take credit for pushing him.

—————————————————-

Andrew Sullivan finds the process interesting. The debate was in the blogs, not the MSM.

There are a couple of things worth noting about this minor, yet major, Washington spat. The first is that the MSM has barely covered it as a news story, and the entire debate occurred in the blogosphere. I don’t know why. But that would be a very useful line of inquiry for a media journalist.

The second is that Obama may bring change in many areas, but there is no possibility of change on the Israel-Palestine question. Having the kind of debate in America that they have in Israel, let alone Europe, on the way ahead in the Middle East is simply forbidden. Even if a president wants to have differing sources of advice on many questions, the Congress will prevent any actual, genuinely open debate on Israel. More to the point: the Obama peeps never defended Freeman. They were too scared. The fact that Obama blinked means no one else in Washington will ever dare to go through the hazing that Freeman endured. And so the chilling effect is as real as it is deliberate.

Our own original 2/26 posting was one of the earliest.

Two teenage kids get kicked out of school and put on probation for taking the name of the Obamessiah in vain. So much for free speech. And all this occurred in North Carolina. Imagine what they’d do to you in Cambridge, New Haven, or Berkeley!

Ashville Citizen Times:

A judge on Tuesday sentenced two former Western Carolina University students to probation for dumping a dead bear on campus with Barack Obama campaign signs on its head.

Brothers Marvin Caleb Williams, of Wilkesboro, who was 20 at the time of his October arrest, and Mathew Colton Williams, who was 18, said nothing in court and declined to comment after the hearing.

Their attorney, Kris Earwood, told District Court Judge Richlyn Holt that the brothers “deeply apologize” and were shocked their action was perceived as a political statement.

“This was just a very bad choice by two young boys,” she said.

The brothers were kicked out of the university, Earwood said, and are going to community college. Both pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Personally, I’d be glad to buy those brothers a beer.

Phillip Broughton lays the blame right at the doorstep of some buildings on the Charles.

If Robespierre were to ascend from hell and seek out today’s guillotine fodder, he might start with a list of those with three incriminating initials beside their names: MBA. The Masters of Business Administration, that swollen class of jargon-spewing, value-destroying financiers and consultants have done more than any other group of people to create the economic misery we find ourselves in.

From Royal Bank of Scotland to Merrill Lynch, from HBOS to Leh-man Brothers, the Masters of Disaster have their fingerprints on every recent financial fiasco.

I write as the holder of an MBA from Harvard Business School – once regarded as a golden ticket to riches, but these days more like scarlet letters of shame. We MBAs are haunted by the thought that the tag really stands for Mediocre But Arrogant, Mighty Big Attitude, Me Before Anyone and Management By Accident. For today’s purposes, perhaps it should be Masters of the Business Apocalypse.

Harvard Business School alumni include Stan O’Neal and John Thain, the last two heads of Merrill Lynch, plus Andy Hornby, former chief executive of HBOS, who graduated top of his class. And then of course, there’s George W Bush, Hank Paul-son, the former US Treasury secretary, and Christopher Cox, the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a remarkable trinity who more than fulfilled the mission of their alma mater: “To educate leaders who make a difference in the world.”

It just wasn’t the difference the school had hoped for.

Trevor Morse, Warwickshire Hunt

Trevor Morse, a 48 year old gardener from Alderminster and foot follower of the Warwickshire Hunt, was killed yesterday during the Hunt’s final meet of the season by the blades of a gyrocopter piloted by two individuals associated with the Animal Rights extremist group Protect Our Wild Animals (POWA).

The gyrocopter had been harassing the Heythrop and Warwickshire Hunts for three weeks, expressing disapproval of their activities by swooping threateningly down on them in an aggressive manner. Complaints about the gyrocopter’s illegally low flying had been made to the British Civil Aviation Authority ten days ago.

The gyrocopter’s crew were arrested by police on suspicion of murder.

London Times

BBC

Telegraph

Kevin Hassett argues that Barack Obama couldn’t be doing a better job of destroying the American economy if he was trying to do just that.

Imagine that some hypothetical enemy state spent years preparing a “Manchurian Candidate” to destroy the U.S. economy once elected. What policies might that leader pursue?

He might discourage private capital from entering the financial sector by instructing his Treasury secretary to repeatedly promise a brilliant rescue plan, but never actually have one. Private firms, spooked by the thought of what government might do, would shy away from transactions altogether. If the secretary were smooth and played rope-a-dope long enough, the whole financial sector would be gone before voters could demand action.

Another diabolical idea would be to significantly increase taxes on whatever firms are still standing. That would require subterfuge, since increasing tax rates would be too obvious. Our Manchurian Candidate would have plenty of sophisticated ideas on changing the rules to get more revenue without increasing rates, such as auctioning off “permits.”

These steps would create near-term distress. If our Manchurian Candidate leader really wanted to knock the country down for good, he would have to provide insurance against any long-run recovery.

There are two steps to accomplish that.

Discourage Innovation

First, one way the economy might finally take off is for some entrepreneur to invent an amazing new product that launches something on the scale of the dot-com boom. If you want to destroy an economy, you have to persuade those innovators not even to try.

Second, you need to initiate entitlement programs that are difficult to change once enacted. These programs should transfer assets away from productive areas of the economy as efficiently as possible. Ideally, the government will have no choice but to increase taxes sharply in the future to pay for new entitlements.

A leader who pulled off all that might be able to finish off the country.

Paul Kengor thinks today’s youth deserves it for supporting Obama.

There’s a collective outcry from conservatives bemoaning the “generational debt” that President Obama is in the process of placing upon this country, particularly its youth. They’re right, of course. But why complain?

It seems only fitting to me that the voters responsible for electing Obama ought to be saddled with the consequences. Let ‘em pay.

Barack Obama’s rejection of a bust of Winston Churchill and off-handed treatment of Prime Minister Gordon Brown were all over the news during the weekend.

There seems to be more to all this than the explanations that Barack Obama was tired, or simply too distracted by the domestic economic crisis to pay attention to protocol (or to arrange for a gift more appropriate than a set of DVDs from Blockbuster).

Obama seems to bear an actual animus toward Great Britain, which not even the presence in office of the current Labourite regime is able to soften.

The Telegraph elicited a very revealing State Department response.

The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.

The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: “There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.”

This video is making the rounds in Marine Corps circles.

2:28 video

Hat tip to Rich Duff.

Day By Day Cartoonist Chris Muir comments on Obamanomics at Big Hollywood:

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Head of Athena Lemnia, possibly the work of Phidias

I am Pallas Athene; and I know the thoughts of all men’s hearts, and discern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls of clay I turn away, and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at ease, like sheep in the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They grow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like the gourd, they give no shade to the traveller, and when they are ripe death gathers them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out of the land.

‘But to the souls of fire I give more fire, and to those who are manful I give a might more than man’s. These are the heroes, the sons of the Immortals, who are blest, but not like the souls of clay. For I drive them forth by strange paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and the monsters, the enemies of Gods and men. Through doubt and need, danger and battle, I drive them; and some of them are slain in the flower of youth, no man knows when or where; and some of them win noble names, and a fair and green old age; but what will be their latter end I know not, and none, save Zeus, the father of Gods and men. Tell me now, Perseus, which of these two sorts of men seem to you more blest?’
—Charles Kingsley, The Heroes.

Human Events reports that the British Labour Party had managed to identify and serve the ultimate left constituency: the invertebrates.

But all this goes beyond jokes, liberal politicians in America, too, are working hand-in-glove with Animal Rights extremists to introduce covertly in the guise of animal welfare protection a range of artful provisions subjecting pet owners to warrant-free supervision by self-appointed animal guardians and erecting a regime of expensive and impractical care requirements that would eliminate private dog breeding and the keeping of packs of hounds.

Yes, it really is now a criminal offense in Britain to abuse an ant, a worm, a slug, cockroach, a scorpion, a stick insect or whatever creature you care to name. The moment you decide to keep it as a pet you are obliged by our Animal Welfare Act to take full account of its welfare needs—or face a $30,000 fine or a twelve-month prison sentence.

And if you think cockroach rights sound crazy, wait till you hear how the law applies to the way you keep your dog or your cat. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)—one of the numerous, busybody branches of our socialist New Labour administration—recently issued guidelines to pet owners clarifying the law.

You risk prosecution if:
—You fail to groom your long-haired dog or cat once a day.
—You feed your dog from the table.
—You use your hands or feet when playing with your cat (as this may encourage aggressive behavior).
—You fail to provide every cat in your household with its own litter tray (even if the cat has access to a garden).
—You try to make your cat vegetarian by denying it meat.

None of these provisions is in itself a criminal offense, a DEFRA spokesman has explained helpfully. But failure to comply with several of them “may be used in evidence to support a prosecution for animal cruelty.”

Hat tip to the News Junkie.

Matt Drudge linked this World Net Daily article discussing heavy-handed and uneven censorship by Wikipedia volunteer admins keeping Barack Obama’s entry free from negative issues.

Wikipedia, the online “free encyclopedia” mega-site written and edited entirely by its users, has been deleting within minutes any mention of eligibility issues surrounding Barack Obama’s presidency, with administrators kicking off anyone who writes about the subject. ...

A perusal through Obama’s current Wikipedia entry finds a heavily guarded, mostly glowing biography about the U.S. president. Some of Obama’s most controversial past affiliations, including with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers, are not once mentioned, even though those associations received much news media attention and served as dominant themes during the presidential elections last year. ...

Wikipedia users who wrote about the eligibility issues had their entries deleted almost immediately and were banned from re-posting any material on the website for three days.

In one example, Wikipedia user “Jerusalem21” added the following to Obama’s page:

“There have been some doubts about whether Obama was born in the U.S. after the politician refused to release to the public a carbon copy of his birth certificate and amid claims from his relatives he may have been born in Kenya. Numerous lawsuits have been filed petitioning Obama to release his birth certificate, but most suits have been thrown out by the courts.”

As is required on the online encyclopedia, that entry was backed up by third-party media articles, citing the Chicago Tribune and WorldNetDaily.com

The entry was posted on Feb. 24, at 6:16 p.m. EST. Just three minutes later, the entry was removed by a Wikipedia administrator, claiming the posting violated the websites rules against “fringe” material.

According to Wikipedia rules, however, a “fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory.”

The Obama eligibility issue has indeed been reported extensively by multiple news media outlets. WorldNetDaily has led the coverage. Other news outlets, such as Britain’s Daily Mail and the Chicago Tribune have released articles critical of claims Obama may not be eligible. The Los Angeles Times quoted statements by former presidential candidate Alan Keys doubting Obama is eligible to serve as president. Just last week, the Internet giant America Online featured a top news article about the eligibility subject, referencing WND’s coverage.

When the user “Jerusalem21” tried to repost the entry about Obama’s eligibility a second time, another administrator removed the material within two minutes and then banned the Wikipedia user from posting anything on the website for three days.

Wikipedia administrators have the ability to kick off users if the administrator believes the user violated the website’s rules.

Over the last month, WND has monitored several other attempts to add eligibility issues to Obama’s Wikipedia page. In every attempt monitored, the information was deleted within minutes and the user who posted the material was barred from the website for three days.

Angela Beesley Starling, a spokeswoman for Wikipedia, explained to WND that all the website’s encyclopedia content is monitored by users. She said the administrators who deleted the entries are volunteers.

“Administrators,” Starling said, “are simply people who are trusted by the other community members to have access to some extra tools that allow them to delete pages and perform other tasks that help the encyclopedia.” ...

The Wikipedia entry about former President George W. Bush, by contrast, is highly critical. One typical entry reads, “Prior to his marriage, Bush had multiple accounts of alcohol abuse. ... After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism. In 2005, the Bush administration dealt with widespread criticism over its handling of Hurricane Katrina. In December 2007, the United States entered the second-longest post-World War II recession.”

The entry on Bush also cites claims that he was “favorably treated due to his father’s political standing” during his National Guard service.” It says Bush served on the board of directors for Harken and that questions of possible insider trading involving Harken arose even though a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation concluded the information Bush had at the time of his stock sale was not sufficient to constitute insider trading.

photo: Karen L. Myers
Anna McKnight falls early in the 4th Race

Last year’s races encountered both a hailstorm and gusts of high wind powerful enough to knock over a porta-potty containing at the time a prominent local physician. Nature, by way of compensation, this year delivered a day that seemed like summer.

As the Winchester Star reports, close to 3000 spectators attended the Blue Ridge Hunt’s traditional Spring Races at Woodley Farm near Berryville.

The meet featured 9 races, flat and over timber, and attracted competitors from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

The scariest moment came early in the 4th Race for the Clarke Courier Cup when Tap Tap, a nine-year-old bay gelding, mistimed his takeoff and stumbled over a hurdle, causing jockey Anna McKnight of Monkton, Maryland to come off.

The fall resulted in a broken wrist and a compressed vertebrae and McKnight needed to be taken to Winchester Medical Center, but happily is expected to make a full recovery, and will soon be resuming riding.

Earlier in the day, Sam Cockburn, who won in his first ride last weekend at Casanova, riding the 8 year-old chestnut gelding Old Fellow in the 2nd Race One Mile Seven Furlong Amateur/Novice Hurdle also suffered a fall, and he too suffered a broken wrist. Cockburn is expected to be sidelined from racing for four weeks.
—————————————————
Correction 3/11: I had originally identified the rider who suffered the broken wrist as Anna McKnight, but my wife Karen assured me that I was wrong and that she had heard officials identifying the victim otherwise, so I re-wrote my posting.

Anna McKnight’s mother, Mrs. H. Turney McKnight, MFH of Maryland’s Elkridge-Harford Hunt, however, read the posting, and wrote a comment informing me that it was indeed her daughter who experienced the more serious injury last Saturday.—————————————————-

Further correction, 3/11:

A commenter informs me that Sam Cockburn, the jockey who fell in the Second Race, contrary to the Winchester Star report, also fractured a wrist.
—————————————————-

My apologies for all the mistakes and confusion and best wishes to both riders for a speedy recovery.

David Harsanyi at Reason also thinks there is nothing wrong with hoping self-important liberal pols step on a banana and take a huge public pratfall.

Is it inherently unpatriotic or immoral to want to see a president fail? After chewing over the larger implications of that vital question, I’ve come to a conclusion: I am a twisted human being. Thankfully, I’m not alone.

You see, when I’m not wasting time greedily praying to be rich, I plead with some higher power to sentence my middling local representatives to painful obscurity and professional failure. My congresswoman, for instance, carries an intellectual confidence so severely out of step with her skill set that the promise of disappointment, I trust, one day will bring me great joy.

If we can’t look to our politicians to fulfill our yearly schadenfreude quota, whom can we trust?

Which brings me to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who recently, at a conservative conference, had the temerity to reiterate his desire that President Barack Obama “fail”—not the economy or nation, mind you, but the politician. Pundits across the nation went into apoplectic tizzy fits over such blasphemous and ugly thoughts.

Since when is rooting for the success of an ideologically driven elected official a civic duty, you may wonder? Wonder no more. It merely depends on the politician. ...

[M]any of us are hoping that all those in power fail, because those in power have a grating habit of being annoyingly self-righteous, hopelessly corrupt, resolutely incompetent and completely apathetic about the freedoms that they have sworn to protect.

Embrace the failure. It’s patriotic.

Walter Olson notes the introduction on March 5th of S.B.1098 in the Connecticut legislature, a measure that would by law remove control of Roman Catholic parishes from bishops and place them instead in the hands of lay panels of not less than seven nor more than 13 members, who would be legally assured full control over most aspects of church management other than religious doctrine itself.

SB1098 was a “raised bill,” meaning no individual member took the responsibility for sponsoring it, but rather a legislative committee (in this case the Judiciary Committee) discussed the idea and the committee then voted in favor of drafting a bill.

Linda Volrath, At the Start, private collection

Not much blogging is happening today. Karen and I will be working at the 60th running of the Blue Ridge Hunt Spring Races. Karen is passing out the trophies, and I’m checking veterinary papers and issuing entry numbers.

The painting above depicts one of the races at Woodley.

Australia’s former prime minister Paul Keating, as the Sydney Morning Herald explains, does not think much of Barack Obama’s choice of Treasury Secretary.

When Barack Obama announced his champion to rescue the world from economic ruin, it was the first time most Americans had ever heard the name Tim Geithner.

The initial impression was good. The stockmarket surged and the pundits swooned. “Exactly a decade ago, he was Uncle Sam’s golden-boy emissary sent into the stormy centre of what was then the world’s worst financial crisis [the Asian crisis],” reported The New York Post.

The paper gushed: “Just 36 at the time, he’d been raised in Asia and knew the culture so intimately he scored successes and won confidences that other diplomats couldn’t match. Geithner earned widespread plaudits for pulling together quarrelling Asian finance ministers into a $US200 billion rescue of their economies.”

“A fantastic choice,” said a Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi analyst, Chris Rupkey, as the Dow rose by nearly 6 per cent. Even one of Obama’s political rivals, the hard-bitten Republican senator Richard Shelby, agreed Geithner was “up to the challenge”.

If anyone in the US media had thought to ask a former Australian prime minister for his assessment, they would have heard a different view. And they would not have been so surprised at Geithner’s performance since.

In a speech to a closed gathering at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Thursday, Paul Keating gave a starkly different account of Geithner’s record in handling the Asian crisis: “Tim Geithner was the Treasury line officer who wrote the IMF [International Monetary Fund] program for Indonesia in 1997-98, which was to apply current account solutions to a capital account crisis.”

In other words, Geithner fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem. And his misdiagnosis led to a dreadfully wrong prescription.

Geithner thought Asia’s problem was the same as the ones that had shattered Latin America in the 1980s and Mexico in 1994, a classic current account crisis. In this kind of crisis, the central cause is that the government has run impossibly big debts.

The solution? The IMF, the Washington-based emergency lender of last resort, will make loans to keep the country solvent, but on condition the government hacks back its spending. The cure addresses the ailment.

But the Asian crisis was completely different. The Asian governments that went to the IMF for emergency loans – Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia – all had sound public finances.

The problem was not government debt. It was great tsunamis of hot money in the private capital markets. When the wave rushed out, it left a credit drought behind.

But Geithner, through his influence on the IMF, imposed the same cure the IMF had imposed on Latin America and Mexico. It was the wrong cure. Indeed, it only aggravated the problem.

Keating continued: “Soeharto’s government delivered 21 years of 7 per cent compound growth. It takes a gigantic fool to mess that up. But the IMF messed it up. The end result was the biggest fall in GDP in the 20th century. That dubious distinction went to Indonesia. And, of course, Soeharto lost power.”

Liberals are always telling us that Barack Obama deserved to be elected president, despite his skimpy public career and lack of any record of serious accomplishment, because he is so absolutely brilliant and intelligent as evidenced by his ability to produce the kind of eloquence that sends quivers of ecstacy running down pale, flabby liberal legs.

Or is he all that brilliant after all?

Carol E. Lee, at the Politico, describes how Barack Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter, and increasingly obvious incapacity to function at all ex tempore, is proving both a physical inconvenience and an embarrassment to his faithful followers in the press.

Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual — not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small.

After the teleprompter malfunctioned a few times last summer and Obama delivered some less-than-soaring speeches, reports surfaced that he was training to wean himself off of the device while on vacation in Hawaii. But no such luck.

His use of the teleprompter makes work tricky for the television crews and photographers trying to capture an image of the president announcing a new Cabinet secretary or housing plan without a pane of glass blocking his face. And it is a startling sight to see such sleek, modern technology set against the mahogany doors and Bohemian crystal chandeliers in the East Room or the marble columns of the Grand Foyer.

“It’s just something presidents haven’t done,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a presidential historian who has held court in the White House since December 1975. “It’s jarring to the eye. In a way, it stands in the middle between the audience and the president because his eye is on the teleprompter.”

Just how much of a crutch the teleprompter has become for Obama was on sharp display during his latest commerce secretary announcement. The president spoke from a teleprompter in the ornate Indian Treaty Room for a few minutes. Then Gov. Gary Locke stepped to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper for reference.

The president’s teleprompter also elicited some uncomfortable laughter after he announced Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his choice for Health and Human Services secretary. “Kathy,” Obama said, turning the podium over to Sebelius, who waited at the microphone for an awkward few seconds while the teleprompters were lowered to the floor and the television cameras rolled.

Obama has relied on a teleprompter through even the shortest announcements and when repeating the same lines on his economic stimulus plan that he’s been saying for months — whereas past presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during major speeches, such as the State of the Union.

Read the whole thing.

It’s understandable, I suppose. We saw during the campaign what Obama was like without assistance.

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3
———————————————————————-

Iowahawk has a few choice words for the great man from his own teleprompter.

4:04 video

Tigerhawk, the Princetonian blogger from Iowa, has been pulling a few all-nighters recently, but found time (at 3:00 AM on Sunday) to deliver on video a John Galt-style speech defending the hard work and personal sacrifices of the high achieving people like himself, currently being stigmatized and targeted for special tax treatment by Barack Obama.

I’ve heard more fully developed analyses and better eloquence, but not often by people speaking from the heart from notes written at three o’clock in the morning after a lengthy session of work.

9:50 video

Leftie blogs are full of Rand villains sneering in response. Dagny would shoot the lot of ‘em.

The late “Macho B,” scientific research study subject

Remember the jaguar collared by the Arizona Game and Fish Department, a wildlife research coup trumpeted two weeks ago in news stories published around the country?

Well, as so often seems to happen when the experts go to work, the patient died.

Some news agency informed us yesterday that the collared male jaguar (now named Macho B by his former captors) was looking the worse for wear after his encounter with humanity. So they captured the poor jaguar all over again, concluded he was unwell, and after a thorough session of expert chin-stroking, euthanized him.

You or I would get in big trouble if we tried collecting a specimen of Pantera onca. Jaguar hunting is streng verboten because an unelected international committee of “experts” has placed every single representative of every jaguar population and subspecies on the sacred Endangered Species list, including the ones in the remote jungle wilderness that are not especially endangered at all.

There is no doubt that Arizona jaguars, though, are rare and in short supply, but, as this incident demonstrates, any numbskull with a degree from some state college extension and a badge can get permission from his federal chums for a little scientific research. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, as George Orwell observed.

The Arizona Game Department’s ill-advised self-promotion in connection with the initial capture has also had the untoward effect of unleashing the animal loving, enviro whackjobs, resulting in protests and (naturally) a memorial service for the dearly departed tigre.

Rahm Emanuel, so fierce a political operator that democrats nicknamed him “Rahmbo,” previously had a softer side. Rush mockingly posted the above photo (and I enlarged it).

Recently targeted by the White House in a series of political attacks, Rush Limbaugh retaliated by challenging the renownedly eloquent Barack Obama to a live political debate on the issues on which they so conspicuously differ.

The current administration has specifically identified Rush Limbaugh as the principal spokesman of the opposition. No one would be a more fitting debate opponent.

Personally, I’ll bet that Obama chickens out and refuses to debate, but the compensation is that Rush will have plenty of fun mocking him for it.

I have an idea. If these guys are so impressed with themselves, and if they are so sure of their correctness, why doesn’t President Obama come on my show? We will do a one-on-one debate of ideas and policies. ...

Let’s talk about all of these things, Mr. President. Let’s go ahead and have a debate on this show. No limits. Now that your handlers are praising themselves for promoting me as the head of a political party—they think that’s a great thing—then it should be a no-brainer for you to further advance this strategy by debating me on the issues and on the merits, and wipe me out once and for all!

Just come on this program. Let’s have a little debate. You tell me how wrong I am and you can convince the rest of the Americans that don’t agree with you how wrong we all are. You’re a smart guy, Mr. President. You don’t need these hacks to front for you. You’ve debated the best! You’ve debated Hillary Clinton. You’ve debated John Edwards. You’ve debated Joe Biden. You’ve debated Dennis Kucinich. You’ve debated the best out there. You are one of the most gifted public speakers of our age. I would think, Mr. President, you would jump at this opportunity. Don’t send lightweights like Begala and Carville to do your bidding—and forget about the ballerina, Emanuel. He’s got things to do in his office. These people, compared to you, Mr. President, are rhetorical chum.

I would rather have an intelligent, open discussion with you where you lay out your philosophy and policies and I lay out mine—and we can question each other, in a real debate. Any time here at the EIB Network studios.

Hat tip to the Barrister.

A lot of Americans were delighted to hear that, once Barack Obama was elected, absolutely everyone would be getting exactly the same kind of health care enjoyed by US senators. If you believed that, you need to talk to me about this bridge I have for sale.

Today’s Daily Mail has a story illustrating how government-provided health services really work: by rationing.

Thousands of patients with terminal cancer were dealt a blow last night after a decision was made to deny them life prolonging drugs.

The Government’s rationing body said two drugs for advanced breast cancer and a rare form of stomach cancer were too expensive for the NHS.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is expected to confirm guidance in the next few weeks that will effectively ban their use.

The move comes despite a pledge by Nice to be more flexible in giving life-extending drugs to terminally-ill cancer patients after a public outcry last year over ‘death sentence’ decisions. Leading campaigners last night said Nice had failed the ‘acid test’ of whether it really intended to give new priority to people with just a few months to live.

One drug, Lapatinib, can halve the speed of growth of breast cancer in one in five women with an aggressive form of the disease.

Dr Gillian Leng, Nice deputy chief executive, said ‘The committee concluded that Lapatinib is not a cost-effective use of NHS resources when compared with current treatment.’

Up to 1,500 stomach cancer patients also face a ban on Sutent – the only drug that can extend their lives.

California’s San Francisco Bay area is notorious for both its inhabitants’ lack of enthusiasm for conventional religion and their hair-trigger political sensitivities.

Zomblog was consequently therefore more than a little surprised at the lack of protests, condemnations, or even public discussion of a new Islamic advertising campaign, funded by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the North American branch of Jamaat-e-Islami, the fundamentalist Pakistani political party.

“No enemies to the left” seems to apply even to Islamic fundamentalism, and even in the Castro, despite the obvious problems with regarding organizations dedicated to the imposition of sharia law as being on the left.

Suckers!

Jennifer Rubin observes how quickly Barack Obama has persuaded last autumn’s conservative turncoats to reconsider their wardrobes.

It’s not quite LBJ losing Walter Cronkite on the Vietnam War, but the president has lost David Brooks.

Well, well. First Chris Buckley and now Brooks. Usually it takes more than a month for presidents to disappoint those they have bamboozled during the campaign. But, as Brooks points out, Obama threw caution to the winds when he unveiled his monstrous budget.

[The] Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.

So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see. We end up with an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new.

The U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment. Yet the Obama budget is predicated on a class divide. The president issued a read-my-lips pledge that no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the American people. All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward. ...

Those of us who consider ourselves moderates — moderate-conservative, in my case — are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice. As Clive Crook, an Obama admirer, wrote in The Financial Times, the Obama budget “contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.”

————————————————————

Chris Buckley:

Hold on—there’s a typo in that paragraph. “$3.6 trillion budget” can’t be right.The entire national debt is—what—about $11 trillion? He can’t actually be proposing to spend nearly one-third of that in one year, surely. Let me check. Hmm. He did. The Wall Street Journal notes that federal outlays in fiscal 2009 will rise to almost 30 percent of the gross national product. In language that even an innumerate English major such as myself can understand: The US government is now spending annually about one-third of what the entire US economy produces. As George Will would say, “Well.”

Now let me say: Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I want President Obama to succeed. I honestly do. We are all in this leaky boat together—did I say “leaky”? I meant “sieve-like”—and it would be counterproductive, if not downright suicidal, to want it to go down just to prove a conservative critique of Keynesian economics. ...

One thing is certain, however: Government is getting bigger and will stay bigger. Just remember the apothegm that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.And remember what de Tocqueville told us about a bureaucracy that grows so profuse that not even the most original mind can penetrate it.

If this is what the American people want, so be it, but they ought to have no illusions about the perils of this approach. Mr. Obama is proposing among everything else $1 trillion in new entitlements, and entitlement programs never go away, or in the oddly poetic bureaucratic jargon, “sunset.” He is proposing $1.4 trillion in new taxes, an appetite for which was largely was whetted by the shameful excesses of American CEO corporate culture. And finally, he has proposed $5 trillion in new debt, one-half the total accumulated national debt in all US history. All in one fell swoop.

He tells us that all this is going to work because the economy is going to be growing by 3.2 percent a year from now. Do you believe that? Would you take out a loan based on that? And in the three years following, he predicts that our economy will grow by 4 percent a year.

This is nothing if not audacious hope. If he’s right, then looking back, March 2009 will be the dawn of the Age of Stimulation, or whatever elegant phrase Niall Ferguson comes up with. If he turns out to be wrong, then it will look very different, the entrance ramp to the Road to Serfdom, perhaps, and he will reap the whirlwind that follows, along with the rest of us.

DFMF, 94-95:

It was the start of my senior year in high school… and one day she [his mother] marched into my room, wanting to know the details of [his friend’s] arrest. I had given her a reassuring smile and patted her hand and told her not to worry. I wouldn’t do anything stupid. It was usually an effective tactic, one of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied as long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved—such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.

Sent to my class list this morning in response to the contention that “government had to step in” because capitalism failed, because businessmen “made such a mess.”

Government created a credit crisis by arm-twisting lenders to make uncreditworthy loans while supplying securitization of the same. Government (at more than one level) additionally laid the groundwork for a housing bubble by forcing prices upward by making 30 year financing of home loans universal and easy to obtain and by creating regulatory environments that made building extremely expensive and nearly impossible in some of the housing markets featuring the greatest demand. Government lent people money to fuel bidding wars, while doing everything it could to keep new housing in short supply.

George W. Bush’s administration pursued simple-minded conventional policies attempting to placate the economy with characteristic timidity and inconsistency. Obama has taken the housing-bust induced recession as an excuse to throw funding at every democrat party special interest and constituency and to justify a power grab socializing large segments of the economy. Bush did not succeed in calming economic turmoil largely because he could not persuade the markets that he had not already lost the next election to a democrat party radical. Obama has, in a very short time in office, demonstrated that he isn’t simply a bloviating and benign big city machine crook, but is rather an extreme radical leftwing ideologue philosophically committed to every form of economic destruction. The economy is cratering as a result.

He’ll need to change the tie

The Obama Administration’s constant and ever-increasing attacks on Rush Limbaugh demonstrate perfectly clearly that, at this point in time, there is no more effective and articulate representative of Conservative political thought in America than the genial and talented radio talk show celebrity and that Rush is the single most effective source of opposition to the radical democrat agenda. Rush Limbaugh is the Republican leader that democrats most fear, and decidedly not Michael Steele.

Barack Obama has himself demonstrated in the most effective possible way the ability of the combination of eloquence and personal charm to substitute for a meaningful resume featuring either significant occupancy of, or achievement in, high office.

The conclusion is unmistakable. We should, at once, start grooming Rush Limbaugh as the next GOP presidential candidate. Limbaugh should run for a governorship or senate seat in 2010, and proceed, in precisely the way Barack Obama did, to let his newly acquired seat grow cobwebs, while he pursues higher office.

Running an inexperienced outsider candidate is bound to be something of a long shot, and Rush has a few vulnerabilities, but just compare Limbaugh’s essentially trivial prescription drug scandal with Barack Obama’s raft load of unsavory associations. The press will not treat Rush as clemently as they did the Kenyan Caliban, but Rush Limbaugh has a real genius for counter-framing an issue. Rush can defend himself.

Rush’s sometimes slightly transgressive sense of humor and his entertainer’s style represent admittedly a greater handicap. Americans want their politicians to provide a primary note of dignity and gravitas. But there is time still for Rush to strike a different tone, to present a modified version of himself. Besides, the continuing economic crisis and the practically assured foreign humiliations and debacles that the current administration will inevitably produce are bound to provoke a passionate desire for change on the part of the electorate so strong that any credible and effective GOP candidate will be starting out with a strong hand.

The White House is trying to link the GOP to Rush. Let’s really link them.

Never Yet Melted endorses Rush Limbaugh for President in 2012.

In a move that makes former president Jimmy Carter look manly, Barack Hussein Obama has launched a secret diplomatic initiative aimed a trading European security for a little Russian help with his Iranian problems.

In return for a bit of restraint on Russia’s part in selling rifles to the Indians, the United States would concede the vital Russian strategic interest of being able to conduct its diplomatic relations with Europe at the point of an array of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles aimed at Europe’s principal population centers.

The Russian News and Information Agency Novosti could scarcely conceal the note of triumph in its news dispatch.

Washington has told Moscow that Russian help in resolving Iran’s nuclear program would make its missile shield plans for Europe unnecessary, a Russian daily said on Monday, citing White House sources.

U.S. President Barack Obama made the proposal on Iran in a letter to his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, Kommersant said, referring to unidentified U.S. officials.

Iran’s controversial nuclear program was cited by the U.S. as one of the reasons behind its plans to deploy a missile base in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic. The missile shield has been strongly opposed by Russia, which views it as a threat to its national security. The dispute has strained relations between the former Cold War rivals, already tense over a host of other differences.

The leaders have exchanged letters and had a telephone conversation since Obama was sworn into office in January, Kommersant said. The first high-level Russia-U.S. meeting will take place later this week, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Geneva.

Moscow has not yet responded to the proposal by Obama, the paper said, adding that a decision was unlikely to be made during Lavrov and Clinton’s meeting.

Maybe it’s not enough, Barack H.. Why don’t you try offering to give them back Alaska, too?

The Onion reports from Arkham, Massachusetts:

Arguing that students should return to the fundamentals taught in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon in order to develop the skills they need to be driven to the very edge of sanity, Arkham school board member Charles West continued to advance his pro-madness agenda at the district’s monthly meeting Tuesday.

“Fools!” said West, his clenched fist striking the lectern before him. “We must prepare today’s youth for a world whose terrors are etched upon ancient clay tablets recounting the fever-dreams of the other gods—not fill their heads with such trivia as math and English. Our graduates need to know about those who lie beneath the earth, waiting until the stars align so they can return to their rightful place as our masters and wage war against the Elder Things and the shoggoths!”

The controversial school board member reportedly interrupted a heated discussion about adding fresh fruit to school lunches in order to bring his motion to the table. With the aid of a flip chart, West laid out his six-point plan for increased madness, which included field trips to the medieval metaphysics department at Miskatonic University, instruction in the incantations of Yog-Sothoth, and a walkathon sponsored by local businesses to raise money for the freshman basketball program. “Our schools are orderly, sanitary places where students dwell in blissful ignorance of the chaos that awaits,” West said. “Should our facilities be repaired? No, they must be razed to the ground and rebuilt in the image of the Cyclopean dwellings of the Elder Gods, the very geometry of which will drive them to be possessed by visions of the realms beyond.”

West has served on the school board since 1997, when he defeated 89-year-old incumbent Doris Pesce by promising to enforce dress codes and refer repeat disciplinary cases to the three-lobed burning eye. He has run unopposed ever since.

“Charles sure likes to bang on that madness drum,” fellow school board member Danielle Kolker said. “I’m not totally sold on his plan to let gibbering, half-formed creatures dripping with ichor feed off the flesh and fear of our students. But he is always on time to help set up for our spaghetti suppers, and his bake sale goods are among the most popular.”

“I must admit, he’s very convincing,” Kolker added.

West’s previous failed proposals include requiring the high school band to perform the tuneless flute songs of the blind idiot god Azathoth and offering art students instruction in the carving of morbid and obscene fetishes from otherworldly media.

Several parents attending the meeting were not impressed by West’s outburst.

“Last month, he wanted us to change the high school’s motto from ‘Many Kinds of Excellence’ to ‘Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn,’” PTA member Cathy Perry said. “I asked if it was Latin, and he said that it was the eldritch tongue of Shub- Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. I don’t know from eldritch tongues, but I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

“We already changed the name of the school from Abraham Lincoln High to Nyalrothotep Academy,” Perry added. “What more does he want?”

Immediately before the vote on his motion, which was defeated eight to one, West gave his final remarks, arguing that the children are our future and that it’s the school board’s obligation to make sure they are fully versed in the unspeakable horrors still to come.

Ben Smith, at the Politico blog, joins the conventional chorus of down-shouters, marginalizing everyone with doubts on the question of Barack Obama’s native born status as irrational conspiracy theorists.

Personally, I always experience a dramatic increase in skepticism when I observe the argument from intimidation underway. Whenever people point to a bien pensant media consensus as established and inarguable fact, I start looking around for the alternative theory.

As to Obama’s native born status, I’ve read Internet rumors that say his grandmother supposedly said some time somewhere that he was born in a hospital in Kenya, but I’ve never seen any form of reliable report confirming that.

I’m well aware, and support the fact, that the United States traditionally bases citizenship both on jus sanguinis (citizenship by right of blood descent) and jus soli (citizenship by right of birth on US soil). I also think that if a person elected to national office by 60-odd million votes as the result of a process as expensive, time-consuming, and elaborate as a US Presidential election were to be disqualified by an arcane, subsequently eliminated, technical and ill-conceived provision of 1960s era citizenship laws, that it would be a disaster.

But I do also think the law is the law, and Barack Obama’s citizenship status, which undoubtedly features a number of occasions for questions, ought to have been thoroughly and openly explored before the democrat party ever nominated him.

I think it is probable that democrat party member state officials in Hawaii are telling the truth, and Obama’s birth certificate is real, valid, and in proper order, but I also wonder, if that is the case, why has he spent more than $800,000 (at last count, which was some time ago), fighting lawsuits in numerous states to resist allowing it to be released.

Obama’s effort and expense at litigating only makes sense if there is something to hide. (In an earlier post, I suggested that perhaps he was really named Sue.)

Beyond the alleged birth in Kenya to a slightly underage US citizen mom, there are also obviously live possibilities of problems with conflicting dual citizenships held contrary to US law. Obama might very well have been adopted by Mr. Soetero. His admission to Indonesian schools apparently required Indonesian citizenship. If Obama lost his US citizenship by adoption as a juvenile, he would have had to take official steps later to restore it.

Obama could have in the past claimed to be a British subject by virtue of his father’s Kenyan nationality. It is reported that Obama travelled to Pakistan in 1981, at a time when US citizens were not allowed to enter the country. Those circumstances suggest he could have used a different passport at the time.

There can be no doubt that the national news reporting organizations allowed political partisanship to deter them from undertaking the questioning and scrutiny of the candidacy of Barack Obama that would normally be expected. It would not be hard to argue that, at this point, the country would be better off, our electoral processes better served, simply by averting our eyes from what is bound to be, at most, some technical disqualification, faced with plunging the country into an appalling and unprecedented leadership crisis (and perhaps making that idiot Biden president), but it is simply not true that no rational basis for skepticism of Barack Obama’s eligibility for office exists.
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Earlier posts.

Trench lines directed animals to a terminal pit trap

Arutz Sheva reports that a research team from University of Haifa, the Arava Institute, the Geological Institute in Jerusalem, the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, and Bar-Ilan University, working with National Geographic, has concluded that so-called “desert kites,” kite-shaped lines discovered by British pilots during the WI era, marking the surface of the Negev and Arava Deserts represent the remains of man-made Neolithic period hunting traps used to direct driven animals into pits, the same way Plains Indians used to drive buffalo herds toward unexpected cliffs.

Only the Scottish Herald and WorldNetDaily are reporting that President Barack Obama got a letter from an admirer asking for a favor.

Obama’s correspondent was the more effective International equivalent of Wiliam Ayres, no less than Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, “Carlos the Jackal” himself.

Carlos was asking his comrade “in Revolution” in Washington to arrange the release, or at least return the remains of his one-time right-hand man, the Swiss terrorist Bruno Breguet.

Breguet disappeared in 1995 after being refused entry by Italy upon his arrival on a Greek ferry.

Carlos refers to Breguet as “our comrade,” possibly meaning both his and Obama’s, and concludes “as your Luo grandfather would say: ALLAHU AKBAR!,” then finally he signs: “Yours in Revolution.”

Sunday Herald (Scotland)

WorldNetDaily